Genetic Engineering Program Proposed To NASA
By Dan La Ponsie,
4 November, 2010,
Translation by Autumnson Blog
Genetic Engineering Could Be Used to Manufacture Future Space Travelers For NASA.
基因工程可能被用來製造 NASA的未來太空旅行者。
NASA’s human spaceflight program will take some giant leaps forward if the agency embraces genetic engineering techniques more fully, according to genomics pioneer J. Craig Venter. NASA scientists and engineers are considering Venter’s claims with a great deal of interest.
美國宇航局的人類航天計劃將有一些巨大的飛躍，如果該機構完全擁抱更多的基因工程技術，根據基因組學先驅J克雷格文特爾。美國宇航局的科學家和工程師很大興趣及正在考慮文特爾的呼聲。
If Venter’s proposals are put into practice, the United States Government would be directly involved in the genetic engineering of humans for employment in government programs.
如果文特爾的建議付諸實行，美國政府將直接參與人類基因工程為政府項目的使用。
The biologist, who established the J. Craig Venter Institute that created the world’s first synthetic organism earlier this year proposed that human space exploration programs implement better genetic screening and formal genetic engineering.The end goal would be the creation of genetically modified humans intended to serve the U.S. Government’s space agency, NASA.
那生物學家，他建立J.克雷格文特爾研究所，今年初創建世界上第一個人工合成生物，建議人類太空探索項目履行更好的基因篩選和正式的遺傳工程，最終目標將會是創造轉基因人類，旨在服務美國政府的航天機構-美國航天局。
Speaking on Saturday, October 30, to a group of scientists and engineers at NASA’s Ames Research Center (view map), Venter made this proposal during two different meetings: a synthetic biology workshop put on by NASA, and Space Manufacturing 14: Critical Technologies for Space Settlement, organized by the nonprofit Space Studies Institute.
Venter is encouraging NASA to consider a program involving genetic modification of humans, saying that such a program would easily compliment existing NASA programs and give those existing programs added value. “NASA’s been doing genetic selection for a long time,” he said. “You just don’t call it that.”
The path to super-human space explorers is simple, according to Venter. This was his basic proposal to NASA scientists and engineers on Oct 30, in 3 steps:
1.Make NASA’s screening processed better focused on genetic identification. Genetics techniques could come in extremely handy during NASA’s astronaut selection process, Venter said. The space agency could screen candidates for certain genes that help make good spaceflyers — once those genes are identified.“The microbe Deinococcus radiodurans, for example, can survive radiation doses 7,000 times higher than those that would kill a human. The bug can reassemble its DNA after its genetic material gets blasted apart by powerful radiation,” Venter said.
2.Build a catalogue the desirable genetic information. Genes that encode robust bone regeneration, for example, would be a plus, helping astronauts on long spaceflights battle the bone loss that is typically a major side effect of living in microgravity. Also a plus for any prospective astronaut: genes that code for rapid repair of DNA, which can be damaged by the high radiation levels in space.
3.Implement the genetic program to build a better space-traveller. “I think this could change the shape of what NASA does, if you make the commitment to do it,” said Venter.
He added that, if scientists can figure out how to incorporate such super-charged DNA repair genes into the human genome, astronauts won’t have to worry so much about the damaging cosmic rays hurtling through space.
Thus, NASA has the means, and a purpose, to launch a genetic engineering program to create a master race of super-humans super-astronauts.
Yes, this does sound vaguely like eugenics proposals from the early 1900s. It also sounds like that James Bond crap-fest called Moonraker. Man alive, every Roger Moore bond film was awful — and Moonraker was possibly the worst. But I digress…
It doesn’t take a big stretch of the imagination to see how this would set a precedent for other government programs intended to build genetically modified humans for the military, or work in the government school system, or to work in the fields.
Already, preparations are being put into place to resurrect the Neanderthals through cloning. So how difficult would it be to “build” humans enhanced for space travel, or war. (Or both.) “We’re trying to apply these tools in a wide variety of areas,” Venter said.
With private companies now handling routine space flight, and the U.S. Air Force getting involved in military space flight, NASA is better able to focus on long-distance human space exploration. NASA could easily oversee a genetic engineering program, according to Venter. He is proposing that the timing is perfect.
NASA is currently looking into building a long-term base on the moon, sending humans to Mars, and getting involved in extraterrestrial prospecting. “But we’re just in the early stages,” Venter explained. “I can’t think of an organization that could benefit from synthetic genomics more than NASA.”
http://www.datelinezero.com/?p=5487
科學家創造世界首個人工生命http://autumnson-nwo.blogspot.com/2010/05/blog-post_6498.html#bn-forum-1-1-3202415878/7773/0/show/blog-post_6498.html
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